


An Unknown Error Has Occured

by Vrunka



Series: Deviant [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Robot Sex, god why is this my brand now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 19:05:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15564447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Connor browses sex upgrades. Something is bound to be what he is looking for.





	An Unknown Error Has Occured

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to gayfishman for talking to me about Detroit enough to kick my ass into finishing this.

“Are you sure about this,” Hank asks. The flicker of his heartbeat reads nervous, swallowing over the question. Respiration higher than normal.

Is Connor sure about this?

He’s never been more sure about anything.

He flips to the next holo-page on the monitor. The models change from extensions to self-lubricating inserts. Dimensions. Sizing. Hank is crimson, pointedly staring anywhere but the catalogue in Connor’s lap.

“Of course I’m sure,” Connor says. “While I’m certainly not displeased with our current arrangement, such adaptations can help to...well would at least make it easier for you to fuck me.” Connor pretends he doesn’t feel Hank flinch at the blunt wording. He steamrolls on. “Everyone is doing it. These sorts of upgrades are normal, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah but it’s not like you’ve ever exactly been normal, Connor. You were damn stubborn and disobedient even before you went deviant.” Hank sighs. His fingers pet into the hair at the nape of Connor’s neck. Dragging down the column of his spine. Tracing the metal vertebrae.

A flickering warning: core temperature rising. His pulse increases to match the demand. Connor blinks the error message away. Turns the page again.

“I just don’t...don’t want you thinking you need some sorta-sorta—uhh. DLC dick just to spice our sex life. I like what we have too. I’m happy if you are.”

Connor frowns. He had honestly thought Hank would be jumping at the chance to normalize their sexual routine. To bring things back down to the perspective he understands. Giving him a hole in Connor’s body beyond just his mouth to fuck. Less weird than fingering his different ports. Less awkward.

Something akin to pleasurable for the both of them.

Except that nothing in any of the descriptors promises pleasure. Maximum comfort for the top seems to be a big thing. Self-lubricating channel, gripping silicone walls, textured “all natural” feel. But nothing about pleasure sensors for the android on the receiving end. No hookups for anything beyond the initial instillation. Connor scrolls a bit further. Tries several more models.

Some offer vibration functions. Some offer self-tightening entrances. Easy to clean or self-purging even. Some are removable. Interesting peripheral details, but not the information Connor is looking for. 

Connor rolls his eyes. He shuts off the holo-pad.

“Gonna tell me what you ordered?”

“Don’t want it to be a surprise?”

Hank frowns. “I spent every Christmas as a kid shaking my presents to figure out what they were. Surprises aren’t really my fucking forte here, Connor.”

Which says a lot about him. That he’s more than willing to admit it says even more. Connor presses closer, leaning into the seam of Hank’s side, lengths of their thighs pressed tight, tight together. He’s taken to wearing Hank’s old boxers and concert t-shirts on their days off. The thick smell of Hank’s detergent and alcohol that can’t quite be washed out. The stale bite of old cigarettes, a long-abandoned habit, but Connor’s hyper-sensitive modules pick up on it. He likes feeling surrounded by Hank. Likes the feel of Hank’s skin against his own, with no layer of his uniform between the two of them.

“I didn’t order anything,” Connor admits. “Didn’t like any of it. None of the models have what I’m looking for.”

Hank’s eyes narrow, one side of his lips rising in a sort of half-grin. “Yeah? And what are you looking for?”

Connor looks down at the deactivated pad. At the pale skin of his thighs, at his hands curled in his lap. “Something that would make me feel,” he says. Swallowing. Unnecessary motion that has become a habit of his own, defined behaviors to echo what humans do. He is nervous at the confession, his simulated breathing speeds up to convey that nervousness.

It’s not a wholly comfortable thing, Connor isn’t sure why his programming has developed this routine, but it’s been happening for weeks now. He’s getting used to it.

Hank’s palm has begun to sweat against the back of Connor’s neck. His throat bobs over a quick, reflexive swallow. “Oh,” he says. His thumb twitches, his knees shift. “Right.”

“I’m sorry. You meant your question to be titillating.”

“No shit, Connor. You’re only buying sex toy mods. Absolutely no reason to think you’d be in the mood after that.”

Hank’s forehead coming to rest against Connor’s own takes away any sting his sarcasm could carry. His contradicting tone and actions, again and again, over and over. He pulls on Connor until Connor relents, straddles his lap, boxers riding high on his thighs as he spreads his legs to either side of Hank’s hips.

“I’m sorry you didn’t find what you wanted,” Hank says. Both hands now tracing Connor’s spine, firmly running up and back down the synthetic muscle to either side.

“It’s okay. You didn’t seem all that excited about the proposal anyway.”

“It really shouldn’t be about me, Connor,” he says. “You’re allowed to be selfish about this stuff. You’ve done enough for me.”

His hands press flat, squishing Connor against him, and though Connor could easily break the hold, he goes with it. Face cradled in the crook of Hank’s neck, Hank’s beard tickling against his forehead. He expects Hank to kiss him, to follow the motions of intimacy that the narrative demands. Expected outcomes. Probability scenarios.

Instead Hank does nothing.

Just holds him in his lap. The two of them, folded together, breathing. Far, far more intimate than sucking on each other’s tongues. More vulnerable as well. Another warning from his operating system about instability, about possible over-heating.

Connor dismisses each flashing warning in turn. Relaxes his body into Hank’s. They stay like that for a long time, cuddled into one another. Connor isn’t complaining. It’s a nice change of pace. Quiet and sure and soothing, soothing.

When they finally do move, it’s at Hank’s urging. Almost ten minutes of silence and stillness later.

“You’re heavy,” Hank says. Mock gruffly, frowning too exaggeratedly to be real. “And I gotta pee, so let me up, Connor.”

Connor doesn’t move his weight, lifts his head to press a kiss to Hank’s temple. Sighing into his hairline.

“That was nice,” he says. “Thank you, Hank.”

Hank hisses something between his teeth. He shifts Connor’s bulk, pinching the skin of his thigh between pointer and thumb. “Just let me up, asshole,” Hank grouses.

This time Connor does.

He settles back on the couch once Hank is gone. Stretches out. He runs a diagnostic, the fluttering warnings about danger to his OS have stopped, the ache of his pump regulator has slowed. He curls his hand over it, pressure just under where his synthetic ribs end.

Something in him shudders and clicks. Abstract, unsteady again. The feeling is becoming more and more common and Connor hates it, he really, really hates it. Even deviant, his processes should have reasons, clear and traceable motivations.

Yet here he is. Suspended. Dangling.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. Though the city is far, far from settled; crimes the nature of which he was built to combat have been few and far between. Markus’ Revolution was a revolution of peace. Androids throughout the city have echoed the example over and over and over again.

Which is wonderful and beautiful and really hopeful. Or something. An optimistic unlikelihood that worked out for the better.

Connor shouldn’t—can’t—complain.

But he feels stagnant. Useless. Directionless. The garden Cyberlife had programmed for him is gone; the tower itself has been on the news. An indefinite suspension of productivity, at least until the laws are finalized. Amanda no longer haunts the spaces in his brain where she once had roosted. No longer a ghost in form or in function.

And he’s lost without it.

Lost without something to investigate.

Something to do.

The toilet flushes. Both Connor and Sumo pick their heads up to glance expectantly over to the bathroom door. The dog’s tail thumps against the floor, love in every staccato beat of it.

“Christ,” Hank says as he opens the door to both of them staring at him. “Can I fuckin’ help the two of you? Did you want me to do a goddamn trick?”

Sumo barks at the word—trick is usually followed by sit or roll over and is always accompanied with a treat because Hank is weak to the big dog’s begging—and Connor scoots up the couch to make room where Hank had been sitting before.

His hand is still centered over his Thirium pump, which tightens and releases as Hank lowers himself onto the couch with a grunt. As Hank pulls Connor’s feet across his lap. Fingers blunt, but gentle around the swell of Connor’s ankle.

His pulse speeds up, fast enough he wonders if Hank can feel it pounding under the plastic. Whirring and whirring with Connor’s love. The unending cycle of it.

“Your light’s yellow,” Hank says. Mildly. Same way he might inform a coworker their fly is down, or their buttons have been done wrong. Somewhat indulgent and smug, but mostly embarrassed to have noticed in the first place.

Hank tends to act as if Connor’s LED is something private, rather than just an indicator of his current processes. He is apologetic and awkward every time it comes up in conversation.

Connor touches his temple. Bites his lip. Looks away from Hank’s hands on his skin.

“You still thinking about those modifications,” Hank asks.

He always refers to them that way. Mods, modifications, enhancements. The few times they have discussed it—usually with Hank red-faced and staring at the floor—he has never used the word ‘upgrade’. Not even once.

Connor isn’t sure if it’s intentional or not. Doesn’t exactly seem like Hank’s style to purposefully dodge such easy phrasing just to make Connor less on edge about it, but it makes Connor feel less on edge all the same.

“I just want to be good for you,” Connor says.

Hank’s hand slides up Connor’s leg, up past his knee, flitting over the stolen boxers, up to where Connor’s hand is resting over his belly. His fingers are warm and dry, sliding between Connor’s own. Squeezing. “I don’t know how many times or ways I can’t tell you that it is, kid. It’s good. You’re good. I’m old, I don’t need a lot fancy shit.”

His fingers twitch. Maybe feeling the increase in Connor’s pulse once more. Connor’s breathing, speeding up right beneath where they are entangled together. Thirium pump beginning to chug so hard Connor can feel the shuddering in his skin.

A flashing warning, irregularities, dangerous instability.

Without thinking, Connor flips the hem of his shirt up, turns their hands to slide beneath it. He opens the port over his belly, the hidden seam in the plastic that leads to the very shining core of him. He pulls Hank’s hand against it. That coiling ever-present heat. Connor’s love laid bare between them.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hank asks. His voice catches with emotion that Connor can only just recognize. Same tone he had had while holding Connor’s arm to keep him climbing the fence and into traffic a month, three days and seventeen hours ago.

Not specifically panic, but something close to it.

“I don’t know,” Connor admits. “I’m just—that is. This is—“

“Your fuckin’ heart,” Hank says. His arm tenses, wrist flexing in Connor’s grip, trying to pull back, pull away, out. “I shouldn’t—I could seriously injure you poking around in there, Connor.”

“I trust you not to, Hank.”

“Yeah. Well. I got big, dumb hands that may not agree with that assessment. Nothing about me is exactly delicate here. I don’t...I don’t want to hurt you, goddamn it.”

“My backup systems can run for two minutes should some sort of terminal error occur. That’s ample time to instruct you on fixing whatever it is you may have broken.”

Hank swallows. Frowning. “Two minutes is a long time on a treadmill, Connor. Two minutes while holding your fucking heart in my hand, not so much.”

“That’s not true, Hank. Two minutes is two minutes; time isn’t malleable the way you’re pretending. It’s simply your perception of it.”

“Thanks for that analysis, Einstein.”

“Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist, your analogy would—“

“Connor.”

Connor grins, he can’t help it. Protocol he doesn’t control sliding into place, lifting the corners of his lips. Hank rolls his eyes.

“If you’re truly uncomfortable, I won’t make you do this.”

“Do you honestly think this is the way to make you feel something?”

Connor sighs. With such a crucial part of himself exposed, with Hank’s fingers inside of him, he’s receiving a fresh bout of warnings. Blinking red hazard indicators. Intrusion alerts. Compulsory diagnostic scans.

It’s not feeling the way Hank means it, not pleasure or pain. Not fear because Connor trusts Hank more than fears for his own safety. There is that constant love and there is this, the thrill of breaking his own programming, putting himself in harm’s way in a way he never could have before his deviancy.

And in that is the pleasure, is where Connor has learned to drag it from.

Hank licks his lips. His chest moves in rhythm against Connor’s shins. Bent at an awkward angle to lessen the pressure on his wrist and forearm. Connor loosens his hold. Hank’s fingers slither from his grip. Stroke the exposed plastic around the outside of his opening instead. Trembling. Gentle.

“I apologize if I’ve made you upset, Hank.”

“You didn’t. It’s...I’m flattered how much you trust me but I-I just. I can’t gamble with your life like that, Connor.”

“You told me I was allowed to be selfish.”

“Yeah, sure. In-in-in getting unnecessary self-lubricating ass downloads. Indulgent dick mods. This is—“ Hank’s fingers flutter, slipping into the space, not touching Connor’s pump again, but hooking to rub against the inner walls. “This is way, way more...”

“Intimate.”

“Dangerous, Connor. You can’t safeword ‘oops you accidentally unplugged my mainframe and now I’m dead’.”

“I don’t have a mainframe,” Connor says. “And any memory or protocol function isn’t stored here.”

“You’re doing it again.”

Connor frowns. His knees shift to either side of Hank’s ribs, pressing in with his annoyance. “I was choosing to ignore your hyperbole in favor of a practical lesson in android anatomy.”

“Well it isn’t cute. I’m worried about you, you know.” Hank bites his lip. Gaze not meeting Connor’s, off to the side again the way he does when he is confessing something he thinks is sappy. Too romantic and cliche for the grumpy tough guy he plays. “I worry all the time about you.”

“That doesn’t make sense. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’ve tried googling ‘my android has depression’ but the search results there weren’t any help at all.”

“I don’t have depression,” Connor says. His fingers of his free hand tighten on the edge of the cushion.

“And I’m not an alcoholic.”

Connor frowns. They’re working on it. They’ve been working on it. Hank still drinks because cold turkey at this point would probably kill him, but it’s noticeably less.

And that’s—it’s beside the point. Tangential.

“Depression is a human condition. A chemical imbalance in the brain,” Connor argues. “I don’t even...even have a brain. My impulses aren’t-aren’t chemically controlled, they’re programmed. My deviancy is an error in the system software and my emotions come from that.”

“You know you sound like fucking asshole when you say that shit right? Your little android dog and pony show is cute, Connor, but I know you well enough to call bullshit when I hear it.”

Connor frowns. He shifts back, out from under Hank’s weight. His feet touch the carpet, curl inward. Signs of discomfort, stress. Another warning, system error. A nice mechanical reminder to off-set the conversation.

“Connor.”

“It’s alright, Hank. I understand.”

“No, you don’t. It’s not a bad thing. Humanity doesn’t just come in the silver-lined package. It’s the good and the bad. I just wish I could make it better.”

Hank’s hands find his hips. Pulling the two of them together again. His biceps bulge under the cut of his shirt. His breathing catches. Exertion. Heart rate speeding up just the littlest bit. Not dangerously so but enough that Connor’s diagnostics pick up on it. Send another warning through his program settings, probability of successful negotiation fluctuating as Hank attempts to move him.

“Have you thought about getting a hobby maybe,” Hank says into his shoulder. “Something to pass the time?”

“A hobby?”

Connor’s fingers flex. He leans back into Hank’s touch. His eyes close.

“Yeah you know. Hobby; noun, something you enjoy that brings you pleasure when you aren’t working your ass off on a case.”

Connor can feel his brain working over the thought. Hank’s incorrect definition. Not inaccurate, just not textbook. “I don’t think Miriam Webster used the word ass,” Connor offers.

“Mm you’re probably right. The definition for that one is just a picture of you.”

“What would I even do as a hobby?” Connor asks. He’s observed Hank enough on off days to know the man’s hobbies. Watching the game, listening to old records, napping. Since deviating, Connor has attempted to listen to music; but his taste leans more toward acoustic mixes, music Hank refers to as hipster with a not-so-well-contained sneer.

“You’re always bitching about my diet, ever thought of taking up cooking?”

“You’re just trying to get me to work for you.”

Hank scoffs. His lips quirk into a smile Connor can feel even through the shirt. “Nah,” he says, “I would never.”

“Under the new laws Article C: Section Five such coercion could be considered illegal, you know, Hank.”

“Jesus, okay fine, no cooking.”

Connor feels himself grin. Some of the heaviness of his earlier mood feels like it lifts. He turns his head to meet Hank’s gaze. “Does sex count as a hobby? We do a lot of that.”

Hank goes scarlet. His temperature spikes, pulse increasing. Connor’s scan logs each jump from innocuous to aroused. The probability scale tips further in his favor.

Hank’s hands shift from Connor’s hips to his stomach. Flitting up under the hem of his shirt to stroke the muscles of his stomach. The port to Connor’s core is still open, but Hank very pointedly does not breach it again.

“Or is it supposed to be a solo activity? Masturbation, perhaps. Could that be my hobby?”

Hank groans, buries his face in Connor’s chest. His breath warming the shirt over where Connor’s human heart would be, blooming heat. Another warning, Connor grins at the flashing, garish red.

“You don’t want to mess with my thirium regulator,” Connor says, “but what if I do and...and you just watch.”

“Connor...”

“I’ll be careful, Hank. I know what to touch, what not to touch. What I can unplug safely. Will you watch me though, Hank? I want you to.” Connor drops his voice, purposeful, negotiating.

Hank groans again. Rolls his head to look up into Connor’s face. He’s blushing, nose wrinkled with his expression, but he says: “Of course I’ll watch, Connor. I’m just...I want you to be sure.”

Sure, sure. Like Connor’s convictions have ever been the issue. He throws himself wholly into every problem, he was programmed to.

He slides his own fingers into the cavity of his belly. Just below Hank’s own chest. If Connor arcs his wrist enough, he can just brush against Hank’s throat, his cheek. His lips. Light kisses where Connor’s arm touches, Hank’s gaze never leaving Connor’s own.

“I love you,” Hank says.

Connor grins, runs his free hand into Hank’s hair, brushing the strands away from Hank’s forehead. With his other he locates one of the wires that connects his pump to the sensors in his legs. He holds the wire steady between his fingers.

He tugs until it comes loose with a quiet, final click.

The warning is yellow this time, exclamation, threatening. Connor’s fingers twitch.

The feelings, proxy feelings, curl and wind where the plug should go. Fill the void in way that shouldn’t be possible. Hank is kissing him through it. Connor finds another plug.

He pulls.

—

Together, after. Connor’s blood has settled. The error warnings all logged away. His diagnostics scan sending its report to wherever it goes now that CyberLife is out of business. Some file on some computer that no one will probably ever look at again.

Hank’s breathing is steady against his back. Hank’s sweat cooling across his shoulder blades.

That restlessness in Connor’s bones again. In his circuits. In his motors. Thrumming, humming activity. Waiting for...for something.

“Maybe you’re right,” Connor says. He stares up at the ceiling. Tracing the old cracks in the plaster with his eyes. “Maybe I do need a hobby.”

Hank makes a sound. Rolling affirmation. Always so quick to pass out once he’s peaked. Orgasm eroding the face of being properly awake. Endorphin rush leaving him crashing.

Connor licks his lips. His fingers trace the muscles in Hank’s forearm. The soft hair. Wrinkles and veins on the backs of his hands. Connor admires the way their skin looks, pressed together over Connor’s chest.

A hobby.

A hobby.

Certainly he’ll think of something.

—

Two weeks later and the package with Connor’s name shows up at the door. Hank eyes him as he gathers it up, goes to the bathroom to rip it open. He doesn’t look disappointed, exactly, but he is frowning just a little bit as Connor holds the box out of reach in his retreat.

Connor knows.

Hank thinks it’s a sex toy.

He tears the packaging away from the protective box, removes the camera from the wrap. An outdated Nikon, the digital display has the wrong year in little yellow digits in the corner. Three different zoom lenses all nestled in the box. Connor turns the camera in his hand.

He snaps a photo of his face, grinning, wide-eyed in the mirror.

Hank hates surprises.

They aren’t his forte.

Connor bites his lip.

He opens the bathroom door.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys as always feel free to come chat with me on my tumblr (vrunkawrites) I’m always down to scream about whatever!


End file.
